Signing off
by Eridor
Summary: About friendship and family. A really few seconds afterwards: what the end of ME:III lacked (for me at least). It contains, obviously, spoilers. I simply tried to add thirty more seconds to the end chapter. I tried to reflect all the crew's feelings, as well as being really brief, but couldn't help to focus more in Garrus -as my whole journey was. "This is it".


They found her.

Despite the broken relays. In the deepest of the Citadel.

Shattered. Broken in almost every of her pieces. Almost destroyed. After making the worst decision of her life. The toughest decision of the galaxy.

They found her. Still breathing, almost stopped, but alive. As if she was never going to give her enemies a break.

As if the hope could never be stopped.

They searched. None could say why. The legend was clearly gone. The legend was fulfilled.

But somehow there was still a human there, in the fire, in the ruins, surviving. As if she could do nothing but survive. In the ruins,

she was there.

* * *

~.

The ship flew.

The relays were still damaged, the communications were difficult. Interferences. People from all over the galaxy trying to stablish contact, to learn the war was gone to the lowest and, at the time, the highest of the coasts. More lives than expected. More lives than what would ever be worth it. He thought it. Staring at the name at the wall that was all he had left from her. He understood her, when she wanted to save them all, when he said even a single survivor would make the war worth it.

The news almost broke Joker.

It took him a few miles to understand the words he heard, repeated as a litany, as if Hacket himself was unsure.

 _I lost…_

The name flew out of his reach.

The litany, through the speakers, repeating itself. Unsure of reaching its destination. As if the good things could never been stopped.

 _But I have **her**._

For a moment, Joker believed in them. He believed again the ship was indestructible and they could never been defeated, even they had already been defeated. Deep too hard.

He himself repeated the litany.

 _I have her._

The ship did not answer back.

 _That is huge too._

Garrus moved his eyes away from the letters. The name. The silent name. The mute wall.

Tali touched his shoulder and left, in silence. As everyone. As the world. The ship was almost in constant silence, as if the ship herself were mourning her.

As if the ship was not gone as well.

Then the ship spoke.

«Guys…»

There were silence for a moment.

The hardest words of Joker's life.

«They say they found her».

The silence came back, filled everyone's heart, heavily. Paralyzing. A funeral. The galaxy biggest funeral, the saddest of the mournings.

He reached her name in the wall with his claws, raging. Thinking about the stars and the bars. Thinking about all the lies they had heard. About all the truths.

The galaxy was doomed to that. To that war. To fall, to fall, to fall, to fall.

And then they survived. And yet the galaxy survived her.

And she survived the galaxy.

«They say she's alive».

And then the silence felt like it was never going to leave them.

They would always live in that terrible moment where someone have said there was still hope, among the destroyed relays, among the shattered galaxy, among the wounds of a war that have lasted eras and had coasted the best. A friend. The family.

They had found her. Because she would never give up.

Because the universe, sometimes, stabs you in the back and then lends you a hand. Half a galaxy away. Half a life, contained in a single word.

The only good thing that ever was in this fight still breathes. She had that tendency.

Because someone else might have gotten it wrong.

* * *

~.

By the time they arrived she had not wake up yet.

She looked smaller. She was smaller. Smaller by the challenges and the fear and the sorrow and the pain. Almost shattered by the giant, shattered like the little thing she looked like. For the second time.

There were new scars. For the second time.

Like pointing lights, saying "here is our biggest hero. She will always help you. Looks like she would do anything but die. She cannot help it. Twice, already. But oh! Looks like she's human! Maybe you should start to live by yourselves. Maybe you should give her a rest. The rest of her life would do it". Saying softly "please peace".

There was almost no Shepard left there.

Someone else might have gotten it wrong.

Eventually, she wake up.

The crew was outside. In silence. Still in silence. Like if the silence itself could not believe that the hope existed still.

He stared at her.

He was not thinking. At all. His mind was empty. He just… stared at her. The most precious and most fragile things in the galaxy, together in one little human almost vanished for being the last hope. Always almost vanished.

—Every bullet we dodged was the deadly one.

The words remained in the air for a moment. For that moment he was unsure which one of them had said them.

—I see.

She was crying. That almost broke him, still paralyzed. She would not stop crying.

—I don't remember ever seeing you crying, Shepard. —she laughed. A second. Exhausted. It seemed it was the last breathing remaining in her little, hurt lungs. —Looks like the reapers finally made you human.

She barely moved. She could not. But she moved, a little, pointing at herself with a small gesture. Pointing at her tears.

She whispered, a flickering voice, trying to sound like a smile. It did not, but it did not matter, it sounded like hope.

She had that tendancy.

—'guess this is commander Shepard signing off.

Then he moved.

He could finally move. Well, that did is a moment where he could stay.

He reached her. He held her hands, always surprised by how perfectly their different fingers fit in the others'.

—I see —he repeated. He cleaned her tears, caressing her cheeks, willing to kiss them so hard it seemed it would break him as well.

And then he could never stop crying, too.

—So you remembered to duck.

 _That's what humans do._


End file.
